


a different kind of danger in the daylight

by callunavulgari



Category: Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Canon Fix-It, Threesome - F/M/M, Yuletide New Year's Resolutions Challenge, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:09:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22072312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: Sleeping with Holland was never part of the plan.
Relationships: Delilah Bard/Kell Maresh, Delilah Bard/Kell Maresh/Holland Vosijk, Kell Maresh/Holland Vosijk
Comments: 10
Kudos: 90
Collections: New Year's Resolutions 2020





	a different kind of danger in the daylight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [musicspeakstoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicspeakstoo/gifts).



> Hello again! So, this was originally going to be your main gift, with the Queen's Thief fic thrown in as a treat. However, I got blocked about halfway through in a major way, so I polished up the other a bit and thought to get this done as your treat before the main collection closed on the 25th. I finished it on the 27th. Fortunately, the New Year's Resolutions challenge is a thing. It gave me the chance to put a little more time into this (and reread most of A Conjuring of Light). So, without further ado, Happy Yule and Happy New Year's! I hope 2020 is great for you.
> 
> Title from Florence + the Machine's, [Delilah](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZr5Tid3Qw4), which is my favorite Delilah Bard song for obvious reasons.

Sleeping with Holland was never part of the plan. 

The plan was simple - keep him alive. That should have been the end of it. Find a way to keep him breathing and the job was done. But keeping someone alive was never a simple thing, especially when they fought you every step of the way.

In all the years that Kell has known Holland, he has never once seemed out of place. They could be anywhere - Red London, White London, Grey London, and all the spaces in between. Holland was Antari. He belonged to all the worlds. The magic that they shared made it so.

Now though, it feels wrong to see him in the palace of Red London. He’s like a ghost drifting up and down the halls, a shade laid out on red pillows and silken sheets. Without his magic, he seems lesser. Drained. A pale imitation of the man he used to be.

And he is _tired_. That is obvious to anyone with eyes.

“Do you really think you’re doing the right thing?” Lila asks him one night. She fidgets restlessly beside him, the moonlight that filters in through the open window making her pale shoulders seem to glow. Kell can feel her energy, like an itch under his skin, and knows that tomorrow he will wake alone. 

“What am I doing?” he murmurs, tilting his head so he can press a tender kiss to the sharp blade of her shoulder.

“Keeping him here,” she says. “You know that he wants to go home.”

Kell is quiet, thoughtful.

Holland does want to go home. Kell knows that. He’s asked thrice, once for every time Kell brings him breakfast. But even if he hadn’t asked, Kell would have known. It’s in his eyes, bright green and glaring when they light upon him.

“He wants to go home to _die_ ,” he says, and Lila snorts.

“Don’t you think it’s up to him to decide where he’ll die?” she asks. “Kell, if you keep him here, he’ll die anyway.”

He won’t. They’ve made sure of that. But Kell knows what she means. The rings aren’t a foolproof method. If Holland decided that he wanted to die tomorrow, all he would need to do was take his off. They wouldn’t be able to stop him. All Holland would have to do was wait. 

“He won’t,” Kell tells her, because he needs to say it out loud. She gives him a dubious look, then rolls over without another word.

When Kell wakes in the morning, the space beside him has been cold for hours.

They spend a week at the palace, saying their goodbyes, tying up loose ends. Nobody asks what they’re planning on doing with Holland. He imagines that for the most part, it’s a simple matter. In the wake of such devastation, few have the time or inclination to wonder at the fate of a dying Antari. They don’t care what becomes of him. He’s a loose thread in their tapestry, and whether Kell and Lila are spiriting him away to another London or taking him on a voyage across the sea, the thread will bother them no more. Neatly snipped. 

On the last night they’re to spend in the palace, Kell brings Holland dinner.

It’s a simple spread of meat, cheese, and fruit, but it smells heavenly. He’d skipped his own dinner in favor of spending time with Lila at the docks, inspecting the ship that they’re to make their home for the foreseeable future.

“I hate ships,” Holland tells him, plucking a grape off the tray. 

Kell sighs. “So do I.”

Holland narrows his eyes, but chooses to stay quiet instead of speak. They both know why Kell is going. He’ll adjust to the ship.

It has been seven days, and Holland has only asked him to go home six times. This morning, he had been tight-lipped and sleepy eyed, largely ignoring his porridge in favor of twisting the silver ring on his finger. Around and around, over and over, until Kell had given up on making conversation and left.

Kell knows that Holland will ask him tonight. He dreads it, the feeling seeping into him like ice.

“Do you remember the third time we met?” Holland asks him quietly, pale fingers peeling the bright red rind off of a thin wedge of pale cheese. 

Kell blinks. The third time? What was special-

Oh.

_Oh._

The third time.

He can feel the flush creep its way up the back of his neck. His ears burn. The memory is wispy and threadbare, poked full of holes, but he remembers enough. He remembers the goosebumps that crept to the surface wherever Holland touched him, remembers the feel of his lips and the sharp blades of his hips under Kell’s palms. He remembers scratchy sheets and the smell of a London that wasn’t home to either of them.

Kell hadn’t been drunk. He’d been something worse than that. He’d been lonely. 

Something about Holland had called to him even then. Kell had followed that tether between them, plucked at it, made it thrum and sing. Holland was like him, and not like him at all, and Kell had liked the way his mouth looked when it ticked upwards into something that both was and wasn’t a smile. Lopsided and a bit sharp.

Kell’s been quiet for too long, and Holland is looking at him the way he had once, sly and insinuating, like he knew all too well what held Kell’s tongue.

“Yes,” Kell tells him with a dry mouth. “I remember. What about it?”

Holland licks his lips. His eyes are very dark in the flickering light. “I wondered if that’s why you’re doing this.”

“Doing what?”

Holland cocks his head, one eyebrow arching. “Don’t play the fool, Kell. You know perfectly well what I mean.”

Kell is quiet, and Holland sighs. 

“Is it that you can’t bare letting someone you once fucked go to their death?” he asks, eyes glittering. “Do those feelings still linger? Is that it? Do you need one last fuck?”

“No!” Kell cries, horrified. “It isn’t- that isn’t it. Is it that hard to believe that I could just want you to live?”

Holland sits back, arms folding across his chest. “And if that isn’t what I want?”

Kell hesitates. Maybe Lila was right. Keeping Holland here against his will was just trading one prison for another. The ring on his finger just another chain. 

“Could you want it, though?” he asks softly. “Be honest. Does any part of you, no matter how small, think that you could be happy? That you could want this?”

Holland opens his mouth and then something strange passes across his eyes. A brief flicker of some emotion that makes him, against all odds, hesitate. Slowly, he closes his mouth.

“I’ll make you a bargain,” Kell tells him, leaning forward. The sheets wrinkle between them, the tray tipping precariously until several grapes go tumbling off the edge. Neither of them move to retrieve them. “Spend a year with us. Sail with us tomorrow, and if you still want to go home when the year is up, we will take you home.”

Holland watches him, his eyes shadowed, mouth pursed. Then his eyes skitter away, going blank. His shoulders slump. 

“I’m so tired, Kell,” he murmurs. 

Kell swallows. “I know.”

“A year is a long time.”

“It can be.”

Holland closes his eyes, tipping his head backwards until it thumps against the headboard. After a moment, he lets them flicker open a crack. He’s twisting the ring again. 

“Fine,” he says, tiredly. “A year. No more.”

A year is a long time to spend with someone you hate. For the first month, it’s a simple matter to avoid him. Holland spends much of his time sequestered away in his rooms, only eating when Kell brings him meals, and besides, Lila is busy. Managing the crew of the Night Spire is a simple delight. It comes easily to her, and the banter is friendly enough. Most of the men don’t care much for Kell or their ghost, but they’ve taken a liking to Lila, despite the halfhearted grumbles she receives when she gives them an order they don’t care to follow. 

It isn’t an elegant life, but she enjoys the stiff, salty breeze. The churn of the waves against the hull. The simple joy of being at sea is no longer new, but it still gleams bright inside of her.

In the middle of their second month at sea, she runs into Holland on the deck. He’s a small figure at the prow of the ship, his shoulders hunched to ward off the chill wind. She nearly ignores him. Is prepared to do so, but something catches in the fading last light of the sun, a gleam of warm light on cool ivory. 

The thing that he is turning over and over again in his palm is smaller than a fist and the color of bleached bone. She doesn’t have to see it properly to know what it is. But she comes closer anyway, because despite herself, she is curious.

Holland doesn’t look at her when she comes to a stop beside him, so she takes a moment to really look at him, hopping up onto the guardrail and tangling her hand in the netting that stretches out overhead. 

He’s still paler than he should be. Part of it is the hair, ghost white and feathering out past his chin. It washes him out, makes him look like someone half dead already. But he’s skinny as well, his hips too narrow, his face so thin that it could generously be described as gaunt. The clothes that he’s wearing are hanging off of him, and there’s a rope knotted around his waist to keep them from falling right off.

She narrows her eyes.

“You aren’t eating.”

Holland sighs. His shoulders, which had tightened at her arrival, slump. That visible sign of exhaustion should make her pity him, but it annoys her instead. She clenches her teeth as he flicks a dismissive glance her way.

“No need to worry,” he tells her wryly. “Kell is still feeding his dog.”

Her eyes narrow even further. “Yes, but how much of what he brings you are you actually eating?”

Another glance, this one with a touch of irritation. “Enough.”

She snorts, turning her attention to the horizon. The sun is nearly gone, leaving only thin streaks of red to warm the soft underbellies of ever present clouds crowding the sky. There’s no storm in evidence, but the sea will be choppy tonight. 

“Liar.”

She catches it out of the corner of her eye when he turns to look at her properly. His hair is loose and long enough to be tossed about in the breeze. It’s in his eyes, but he doesn’t move to push it away. 

“Why do you care?” he asks, his voice thin and waspish.

She shrugs. “Kell would be upset.”

“Kell would get over it. Kell _will_ get over it.”

She turns to look at him and their gazes snap and lock together. She hasn’t looked him full in the face since the day they put on the rings. 

“Do you want to die that badly?” She tries to make the question dismissive or haughty, but instead it comes out honestly. Curious. The hairs at his temples flutter, threads snagging at the corner of his mouth.

He gives her a stony stare. After a long minute, she shrugs, and hops down. 

“If it were up to me, you’d have died a long time ago,” she tells him with an easy little smile. It’s carefully crafted, that smile. Somewhere between uncaring and the promise of a blade in the dark. Compromise. “But for some reason, Kell thinks that you deserve a second chance. Don’t fucking waste it.”

She leaves him, because she doesn’t have time to babysit, but that night, she’s still thinking about it. She crawls into bed with Kell and peppers him with slow, languid kisses until a smile flickers to life on his lips and he finally rolls over to fuck her. 

When it’s done, and they’re lying together in a pile of limbs in the dark, she turns to him and says, “It’s not working. Whatever you’re doing.”

He lets out a sleepy little whuff of a sound, his chin tilting on her shoulder.

“What am I doing?” he murmurs, and it reminds her of that same question at the start of all this. 

“Bringing him breakfast and dinner. Making polite conversation. Blowing him under silken sheets. _Whatever_ it is that you’re doing to make him see the light. It isn’t _working_.”

He’d startled half upright at the important bit, his eyes wide. He sputters. “What- I’m not-” 

She snorts, rolling her eyes as she pulls him back down beside her, pinning him into place with an arm flung over the chest and a thigh clamped over hips. 

“Maybe you should be,” she tells him seriously. “Because I am dead serious, your little chats aren’t working.”

Kell quirks an eyebrow at her, but he’s still recovering, so it looks more like half a wiggle. His cheeks are red, and he’s squirming a bit against her hold. 

“How would you know?”

“Because,” she says. “I caught him on deck today, and let me tell you, nobody contemplates the sea that seriously unless they’re contemplating tossing themselves overboard.”

Kell blinks. “He left his room?”

“Ugh,” she says, and rolls until she’s most of the way into his lap. She clamps her knees around his thighs, fisting her hands in the sheets on either side of his head. He’s still soft between her legs, but she can feel him twitch at the heat of her. “Look. You feel like you have to make up for his shitty life. I won’t say that I understand it, because you aren’t the person who rolled the dice to give him that life in the first place, but I understand you well enough to know there’s no talking you out of it.”

She pauses, taking a breath. It’s a careful breath that feels sort of sharp in her lungs. She doesn’t want to say what she’s about to say, but she’s going to do it, because against her better judgement, she cares about this little shit.

“I’m just saying, that if you’re going to try to do the hero thing and save him from himself or whatever, you have got to commit to it. No more pussyfooting around this thing. You want to fuck him? Congratulations, you have my permission to fuck him. But don’t think for one second that your dick is going to magically make him care again.”

His dick is certainly committing to something. But Kell himself is quiet, his brows furrowed, staring at her. He looks… lost, mostly. A little turned on, but she supposes that’s a given with her naked in his lap.

She taps a finger against the tip of his nose when he opens his mouth. “And don’t tell me that you don’t want to fuck him. I know you, Kell.”

His mouth clicks closed. He licks his lips, and tries again. “I don’t want to try to fuck him into feeling things again.”

She shrugs. “So be honest. Be you. You tricked me into caring about you, I’m willing to bet you can probably do the same to him. And caring about one person can go a long way. Not all the way, mind you, but it’s a start.”

He stares at her for another long minute, and then his hands come up to frame her hips. 

“I’m going to fuck you now, if that’s all right.”

She rolls her eyes. “Finally.”

The next time she sees Holland, it’s in the halls between their rooms. It’s been about a week since her and Kell’s chat, and Holland is still looking wan and malnourished. Whatever Kell’s planning on doing, he clearly hasn’t done it yet. 

She comes to a stop several steps ahead of him and waits.

He tilts his head at her, considering. “Yes?”

She’s a bit drunk. One of the crew had brought out a fiddle at dinner, and another brought out a lute, and one thing lead to another. It seemed to be an undisputed fact that no matter the world, good music lead to merriment and drinking. 

The last time she’d seen Kell, he’d been camped out at the main table cheerfully cheating her entire crew out of their money. She’d only excused herself to use the loo, so she’s pretty certain that he’s still where she left him.

The silence has lasted a bit too long, grown awkward between them, but Holland doesn’t seem to care. He’s still waiting, expectantly, for her answer.

“You should come up on deck,” she tells him after another moment has passed. “I think people are dancing now.”

“I don’t dance,” he says, flatly. 

She smiles. This one isn’t calculated, so it comes out a little lopsided, a little honest. “Everyone can dance if they’ve had enough to drink.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t do much of that, either.”

“Well,” she says. “There’s a first time for everything.”

Before he can protest, she takes him by the wrist and begins to tow him towards the stairs. He comes, albeit grudgingly, but she doesn’t let go of him until they’ve reached the little circle of light and sound. 

Kell is still cheating her men out of their hardwon money, but his eyes flicker upwards to meet hers the moment she’s within view. His gaze catches and snags on Holland’s shape behind her, and she grins at him, waving cheerfully. 

There are people dancing, several men and women taking each other in arms, spinning joyfully across the decks to something lively and upbeat. 

“All right,” she says, spinning to face Holland. She overbalances a bit, but rights herself before Holland can reach out to steady her. “C’mon. It’s easy.”

He just looks at her. “You’re drunk.”

“And?” She holds his gaze expectantly. When no response seems to be forthcoming, she grins. “That’s what I thought.”

Getting Holland to dance is a bit like that first time trying to move between worlds. Which is to say- difficult. He doesn’t let her move him, doesn’t try to find his rhythm, so she spends most of the time spinning him around relentlessly to see if she can make him throw up. By the end of the first song, someone is passing her an ale, which she cheerfully passes on to Holland before accepting another. 

She salutes him with her mug, and only drinks when he does.

By the end of the second song, she’s gratified to see that there is a delicate flush on his cheeks, though whether that’s from the dancing or the beer is anyone’s guess.

Kell is watching them over his cards, eyes dark in the flickering light of the torches.

“Are you trying to make him jealous?” Holland asks her, pulling her attention away from Kell, who has, at last, lost a hand. She blinks at him, startled, and Holland takes advantage of her confusion to twirl her. It leaves her a little bit dizzy, breathless. 

“Kell?” she asks with a laugh. “Lords, no.”

He cocks his head at her. With the flush of the drink on his cheeks, the gesture is a bit less stilted than it would have ordinarily seemed. “Why ask me to dance, then?”

Lila shrugs. “Maybe I just wanted to see you dance.”

His eyes narrow. “And? How do I measure?”

That startles a bark of laughter from her. She grins at him, the laugh still on her lips as she answers, “Poorly.”

He hums thoughtfully, and after a moment, seizes her by the hips. The dance isn’t something as well crafted as a waltz. There are turns, steps, whirling, but it’s all in good fun. Nobody dances to pub music the same way, really. But Holland approaches it meticulously. He twirls her with practiced flair, not so much finding the rhythm as the rhythm finding him. 

“Ah, so you can dance,” she remarks as he takes her by the elbow and pulls her close before reeling her away again. “You just choose not to.”

He rewards her with a smirk. It’s the first glimmer of life that she’s seen in him in months. 

“Dancing can be a worthy skillset to have as an ambassador,” he tells her by way of explanation, pulling her briefly into a complicated set of steps that she recognizes as a common dance from her London.

Kell is still watching them. She can feel his gaze between her shoulders, can even catch it briefly as they whirl by. 

“You say that you aren’t trying to make him jealous, but I can see you looking at him,” Holland says, his breath warm against her cheek. She shivers, despite herself, and glances up to look at him. He is looking back at her, green eyes bright. It’s still odd, seeing both of them green when she’d grown so used to the black. It annoys her. The three of them seem less of a matched set.

“Maybe I am trying to make him jealous, after all,” she tells him flippantly as he takes them into another dizzying set of turns. “Or maybe I’m trying to tell him something.”

He blinks at her, long lashes dragging against his cheeks. “A secret message?”

She snorts. “Hardly. Just a reminder.”

The song winds to a close, and letting the lungful of salt laden air embolden her, she steps into him and presses a lingering kiss to his cheek. When she pulls away to look at him, his eyes are on something behind her. She doesn’t have to turn around to know that it’s Kell. 

“Mind if I cut in?” he asks, and she smiles, taking a step back.

“Not at all,” she tells him, giving a little bow. Both he and Holland are frozen, staring at her, so she makes a little twirling motion. “Come on, chop chop.”

“Ah,” Holland remarks. “You’re meddling.”

She shrugs and turns to grab herself another mug of ale. “I’ve got an investment in the outcome.”

On the eve of his fourth month in their captivity, Lila accosts Holland in his room. It’s a little room, what they’ve given him, but Holland’s grown fond of it. It has enough space for one and there is a bed. But what’s more, it affords him some semblance of privacy, which is more than he’d have had if she decided to make him bunk with the crew. 

The night is a cool one, a chill wind sweeping in from the north that promises a storm as surely as the distant rumble of thunder on the horizon. The sea had grown choppier as the day wore on, and now that night has come, it’s next to impossible to do anything at all, so he is lying on the bed contemplating the ceiling when she bursts into his room. 

There’s a flush high on her cheekbones and her hair is damp at the temples and the back of the neck. She too, he sees, has recently been in bed, though from the smell of her it’s likely that she hadn’t spent much of that time contemplating the ceiling. 

“Lila Bard,” he says in greeting, inclining her head. She wrinkles her nose at him. 

“You should join us in our room,” she tells him without preamble. Her chin is high and her shoulders are tight. She’s clearly expecting him to say no, has braced for it, and is likely hiding a dozen quips and counters to any denial he could give her.

He could give it yet, and he thinks that after several rounds of back and forth on the matter, she would even relent and let him keep his hardwon solitude, but Holland has given much thought to this inevitability in the last few months. Holland knows the game that they’re playing at. He even knows what they want, which is an unexpected pleasure. Kell is soft-hearted at his core and for him, there is no happy ending if Holland chooses to walk away from this. Lila simply wants what Kell wants.

But there is more to it.

Four months is not as long as a year, but it is long enough to feel things. To track the way that eyes follow him across a room, first Kell’s, and then, after a time, Lila’s. Holland has taken breakfast with them, lunch, dinner. He has danced not once, but twice. He has stood on the deck and watched a storm come on them, watched Lila twirl Kell around in the rain. 

He doesn’t trust feelings. Doesn’t trust love. But he’s finding that somehow, he does trust them. 

They’ve given him a place between them. A harbor. He is still tired. There’s a bone deep ache inside of him that he thinks will never be fully healed, but he thinks that he might be ready to let them try.

He’s seen this night coming, watched it edge closer with each familiar touch, every half smile, or offered laugh. And he does want them. He longs to slot himself between them truly, touch their skin and feel their heat. 

So he breathes in deep and sits up. Says, “All right.” 

Lila falters, blinking. 

“Oh,” she says, catching herself against the doorframe when a particularly rough wave sets the ship rocking. “Well, all right.”

He follows her out of the room. The hall between their cabins isn’t a long one and the path is lit by lamplight, candles flickering in the dark. She doesn’t turn to look at him as they walk, keeping her back firm and spine straight until they arrive at the closed doorway. Only then does she turn. 

Her eyes are darker in the lamplight, her short hair cut in a sharp line against the jut of her jaw. She’s always looked serious, always a bit dangerous, and this moment is no different. She looks at him assessingly, as if she’s trying to see where he measures.

“I don’t hate you,” she tells him, and he blinks. 

“Not anymore,” he adds, because it needs to be said. The history between them is a jagged, painful thing. He knows what it must have cost her to admit it and wonders if she feels that she is perhaps betraying her friend’s memory to feel anything other than hate for him now. 

“Not anymore,” she agrees, and takes him by the chin, reeling him in to kiss her.

It’s a soft kiss, a quick kiss, a promise of more to come. 

When she pulls away, her dark eyes are softer. There’s something almost resembling affection there when she gives him a half smile and throws the door open before them.

Kell is on the bed, which Holland had expected. He’s in a state of disarray, his breeches unfastened and his shirt spilling open almost to the navel. There are dark bruises in the shape of Lila’s mouth leading a path from his clavicle to his jawline. 

Holland saw him like this once, and only once. Then, it was a simple pleasure. Getting to have something of his own, something that the Danes couldn’t touch was as exhilarating as the feel of his breath on Holland’s thighs. 

Now, Holland’s feelings are a great deal more complicated. There’s a tumultuous surge of something inside of him- excitement, want, and relief all at once. It’s a heady concoction that leaves him breathless as Kell props himself half up, his eyebrows arched high.

“You came,” he says, looking surprised.

“I came,” Holland agrees, and steps past Lila into the room.

Their cabin is a great deal larger than his, which is only to be expected. The bed is large enough for two, though not so large that it crowds the room. There’s a simple table and chairs set before a window that overlooks the sea. On it, is a bowl of fruit and an unfinished book that appears to have been set down in haste. There are baubles hanging from the ceiling, many colored glass jars containing hidden treasures and clear ones that hold miniature ships. The lamplight gives the room a warm, lived in feeling.

He has been in this room before, in the stark light of day, but he finds that at night, it is altogether different. 

Lila steps up to his side and closes the door behind her. Somewhere, thunder rumbles.

There is quiet between them for the space of a moment, and then Lila clears her throat. Holland watches Kell’s throat work as he swallows. 

“Do you,” he starts unevenly. “Er, would you like some wine?”

Lila snorts. “Yes, because _wine_ is what he’s here for.”

She turns to Holland, a smirk on her lips, mischief in her eyes, and he knows what she is going to do before she does it. She goes up on her toes to catch him in an open-mouthed kiss, threading her fingers into his hair and pulling him down to meet her. He stumbles, pulled off kilter, and wraps his arms around her waist, thumbs digging imprints into the curve of her spine.

She kisses like she’s trying to fight him, all tongue and teeth, her mouth and hands greedy. She uses her whole body, shoving him first up against the door at their back until she realizes that’s not the direction she wants him to go. Moving him across the room without breaking the kiss isn’t a simple thing, and they knock into objects as they go, a box, a bookcase, before the side of the bed hits the back of his knees, and he goes sprawling across Kell’s legs under her.

She pulls back then, her eyes glittering, and slants a look Kell’s way.

“Well, hello,” she tells him, leaning across Holland’s body to kiss him. She’s smiling. “I’ve brought you a present.”

Kell glances at Holland, his own eyes bright with laughter. “I noticed.”

Lila looks down at him thoughtfully. She’s perched precariously on his lap, her knees digging into the bed on either side of his hips. They’re still half off the bed, Holland’s legs hanging over the sides. 

“Would you like to unwrap him?” she asks, and Holland’s heart does a funny quiver in his chest. “Or shall I?”

“I think,” Holland tells her wryly. “That the present would like to do the unwrapping himself.”

Her eyes narrow, but with a muttered complaint, she obligingly clambers out of his lap, leaving Holland free to heave himself the rest of the way onto the bed. 

His clothing is simple. Shirt, breeches, the coat he’d left back in his room. He removes the shirt first, making quick work of the buttons before setting it aside. He takes a moment to look at himself, the still too skinny curve of his waist, where the jut of his ribs and hipbones are plainly visible. He can’t imagine it attractive, but when he returns his gaze to theirs, neither look pitying or disgusted. Merely hungry.

He’s slower to remove the breeches, hunching to push them down his thighs. 

Holland feels curiously comfortable like this, naked before them. He watches them, letting them look their full, taking pleasure in the heat that blooms in their eyes. Lila is the one who reaches for him first, but she hesitates there, a palm laid heavy over his breastbone. She glances at Kell, and then seems to make the conscious decision to move back, nudging them closer together. She scoots back across the blankets, until there’s a little more than a foot of space between them.

“Kiss him,” she whispers hoarsely, her eyes on Kell. 

Kell’s throat works as he swallows, and for a moment, he is still. His fingers tremble against his thighs, and then he moves, pushing up off the pillows to reach for Holland. 

Holland lets Kell reel him in, until they are so close that he can feel Kell’s breath on his cheek, on his mouth. He licks his lips, watches Kell’s lashes flicker against the curve of a pale cheek. His lashes are as red as his hair, and at the sight of them, a rush of something tender and warm courses through Holland’s veins.

“Hello,” he says, very close.

“Hello,” Kell replies, eyes flicking towards his mouth. His gaze settles there, and without seeming to think about it, he reaches out and touches the pad of his thumb to the bow of Holland’s lips.

Holland lets his eyes drift closed at the sensation, his lips parting as Kell’s thumb maps out the circumference of his mouth. It is soft, with a hint of callus, and tickles. He takes a breath, and leans forward. 

It’s a small kiss, just as soft as the one with Lila in the hall, but it feels packed with things unspoken. Memories, hopes, a future that neither of them can see just yet. And then, just as Holland is considering pulling back, Kell gives with a moan, his hand sliding into Holland’s hair as he deepens the kiss, makes it hot and wet and deep.

There’s a shiver between them, something that reminds Holland of borrowed magic, and he breathes out sharply when a hand touches his bare back, Lila’s cool hand soft and grounding. He breaks the kiss with a gasp, panting, and opens his eyes.

Kell’s eyes are still closed, eyelids trembling. There’s a heat to his cheeks that wasn’t there before, and his mouth is bruised a dark red. Holland wants him between his thighs again, wants his mouth and his hands and whatever else Kell will let him have. 

He pushes back into Lila’s touch, and feels her sigh. 

“You’re wearing too many clothes, Kell,” she whispers, and Kell’s eyes drift open slowly, his gaze glassy. He hums, fumbling at his clothing until the shirt is pushed off his shoulders, falling back onto the pillows behind him. 

Holland takes pity on him, reaching for the breeches himself. It’s easy to shove them down Kell’s hips, work them over his legs and ankles until they’re on the floor with the rest of it.

Kell’s cock is flushed a pretty pink, solid and hard between his pale thighs and Holland reaches for it, curious and wanting. He likes the way it jumps in his hand, how Kell lets out a breathy sound that isn’t quite a gasp. He strokes it slowly, watching it fatten up further, and Lila hums happily behind him. 

She leans in, and he can feel the drag of her bare breast against his shoulder as her hand joins his on Kell’s cock. 

Kell makes a wheezing sound, and she laughs softly, her breath sweet. 

“How do you want us?” she asks Holland in a whisper, and that too is new, having a choice. Wanting. He thinks about it, and then ducks his head, taking the head of Kell’s cock into his mouth. 

Kell lets out a little cry, and Holland can hear Lila murmuring something to him as she moves to his other side, but doesn’t pause to look, his attention focused on the feel of Kell in his mouth, hot and silky and smooth. He smells of sweat, faintly, but in a way that is almost pleasant. Last time they’d done this, he’d smelled only of roses, thick with the smell of his London, of magic and the palace and the color red. 

Holland had been hideously jealous of him then, and he had been rougher because of it, so he is determined to be gentle this time. 

He mouths at Kell, suckles gently, using his tongue and carefully, the scrape of his teeth. Lila is doing something above him, kissing and touching, murmuring, her throaty whisper in the quiet room the only sound to mask the hiss of Kell’s breath and the wet ever-present sounds of Holland working his cock. 

He doesn’t let up until Kell is squirming, twitching in his mouth, and only then does he pull away. He could have kept on, he knows, let Kell find his release in Holland’s mouth and pass the time until he was ready for it again. But there is a very small, simple part of him that wants them to find that release together. It’s a sweet want, a stupid one, something that makes him instinctively cringe from the romanticism of it. 

When he pulls away, Kell makes a quiet noise of protest, but it is muffled by Lila’s mouth.

As Holland watches, her kisses shift into something harder. She slants a look at him that seems to be an invitation, a summons closer, so Holland goes, crawling up Kell’s body until he can catch Kell’s mouth with his own as Lila pulls away. 

Kell is shaking. From what he can feel, Lila is shaking as well, her ribcage pressed against his side. 

He thinks about what he wants as they kiss, feels Lila rubbing herself against him like a touch-starved cat, Kell’s hands wavering between them, first on the curve of Lila’s belly and then settling on Holland’s hip. He looks overwhelmed, the delicate pink flush of before a solid red in his cheeks. 

“Please,” Kell whispers when they pause, and Holland finds himself smirking at him.

“Please, what?” he asks, murmuring the words between kisses. 

“Want to touch you,” Kell breathes, his voice earnest. Lila makes a quiet noise of triumph at Holland’s side, her hand straying to his belly. 

“So touch me,” Holland says simply, and Kell surges forward, his eagerness palpable as his hand finds its way between Holland’s legs. He gives a solid twitch when Kell’s questing fingers brush against the head of his cock. Lila’s hand is still splayed low across her belly, and their hands catch, tangling around him. 

He has to look away, lets Lila shove him back against the bed, lets Kell stretch out above him. Kell takes them in hand together, moves his hips in similated fuck, and for a long string of moments Holland is aware of nothing other than that, of their hands on him, the catch and drag of Kell’s hips against his own and Lila’s hand caught between them.

“What do you want?” Lila asks again, from somewhere very far away, and Holland makes a quiet noise, punched out and dragged from his throat. 

_Everything_ , he thinks he says. _Anything._

Holland is sharply aware of the moment that Lila shoves Kell aside and settles herself on top of him. The slide of her body is cool and sharp, like a sheathed blade, and when she works herself onto his cock he cries out at the pleasure of it, warm and slick and perfect.

Kell kisses him and Holland wants - he wants Kell in his mouth again, wants around him and in him. He wants everything. 

Thunder rumbles and the ship sways with it as there’s a flash of light from the window. The storm is on top of them now, and Holland should feel concern at that. Above them, the crew is sure to be working overtime to keep them afloat, but Holland can’t seem to care. 

Above him, he hears Lila give a breathless little chuckle, one that Kell shares, and he wonders at that, at the story there, but before he can ask Kell is kissing him again, his lips hot and insistent. Lila moves, fucking him harder and faster until she cries out, her thighs tightening around his hips. 

She catches herself against his chest, and breathes heavily for a moment before she begins to move again, riding him slower, the rock of her hips against his languid. She is looking at him with an air of smug anticipation about her, as if she knows something that they don’t. 

“Do you want him to fuck you?” she asks, fingers reaching out to trace a line down the curve of Kell’s spine. “Or would you rather fuck him?”

“I think,” Holland tells her, slightly out of breath as she squeezes around him, “that I was rather clear before.”

“Oh?” she murmurs, a gleam of mischief in her eyes. “Were you? Must have forgotten. Remind me again?”

Kell is looking at them, his hand splayed out over Holland’s heart, trapped in the space between them. There’s warmth in his gaze, a deep affection that Holland feels he’s cheated out of him. He hasn’t earned the warmth, but it’s there nevertheless- for him, for Lila, for them, the last of the Antari. 

He bites his lip against the sensation of Lila twisting her hips, and opens his mouth to whisper words that may not be magic, but have a power all their own.

“Everything,” he whispers. “I want everything.”

In the morning, he’ll wake tangled in them and find the ache in his chest less. He’ll wake sluggish, and before he can think of leaving, Kell will grumble in his sleep and pull him back down. Lila will kiss the side of his face and stroke his throat, and he will surrender to the grasping hands of a dreamless sleep. 

In the morning, it will hurt less. 

In half a year’s time, he may wake on the day that he’s to give Kell his answer, and find that it barely hurts at all.

But that is a future that, for the moment, is out of reach. 

For now, Holland simply closes his eyes and lets himself feel.


End file.
